By Rachel Richards | CNA Media Team

Are you looking for a way to give back to the community this holiday season – or are you considering a New Year’s resolution to help your neighbors more? Worthy causes abound in and near Concordia, and they could use your tax-deductible dollars and/or your spare time.

At least two organizations in Concordia focus on the hungry.

Northeast Emergency Food Program (NEFP) meets urgent food and clothing needs. Clients include anyone in need, including those who are experiencing houselessness and those who are undocumented. NEFP is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 4800 N.E. 72nd Ave.

Volunteers are needed for: liaison, inventory, assisting clients shop, greeting, intake, operating the mobile pantry, serving as couriers, and in the clothing center, garden and landscape operation, cleaning and maintenance. Donations of funds, food and clothing are welcome. Contact NEFP at 503. 284.5470 and/or NEFP@emoregon.org.

The Faubion Food Pantry is always in need of shelf-stable food, especially fruit and applesauce cups, alternative milks (soy, almond, hemp, coconut), and protein-rich items such as canned soup and veggies, with an emphasis on organic and healthy food.

There’s also a need for clean, gently used children’s coats during the clothing drive that ends Dec. 5. For details and/or to schedule a drop off or pick up, contact Jaclyn Sisto, 3 to PhD services coordinator, at 971.804.9125 or jsisto@cu-portland.edu.

All of the local schools need more volunteers and dollars to support their academic programs. Internet searches can offer you contact info for Faubion, Vernon, Rigler and Ivy School Prescott Campus elementary schools; Beaumont Middle School and/or Jefferson, Madison and Alliance high schools.

One of the human services organizations in Concordia is The HIV Day Center, 2941 N.E. Ainsworth. It provides services for low-income people living with HIV/ AIDS. Hot breakfasts and lunches are available four days a week, as are counseling, information and referral, and help with problem solving. Clients have access to phones, a mail drop, computers with internet access, Wi-Fi, laundry facilities, clothing, showers and hygiene supplies.

The organization will benefit from the Dec. 5 World AIDS Day Fundraiser Luncheon.

Rachel Richards is a 16-year Concordia resident who loves her community. She has a background in counseling/education and uses her passion for helping others in her work as a real estate broker. Contact Rachel or learn more about her at rachelrichardsrealtor.com.

By Karen Wells | CNA Media Team

Calling all hands! Our Fernhill Park Tree Inventory is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 29, from 4:30 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 8, from 8:30 a.m. to noon. The Concordia Tree Team needs your help for both.

All hands are welcome. Young people, adults, kids and seniors are needed to measure, map and record information about the trees of Fernhill Park. Each new set of hands will be paired with a trained team leader from Portland Parks and Recreation/Urban Forestry and/or Concordia Tree Team member.

Register for both dates at PortlandOregon.gov.

You will need to bring: Your enthusiasm and team spirit, water, layered clothing for cool mornings/hot afternoon), cell phone, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and backpack for miscellaneous items.

Your team leader will provide: a yellow vest to wear at all times, information and supplies/materials.

Information you will record: tree location, name, height, diameter, crown or width and condition.

You will get: Some walking exercise, new information about trees and a good feeling knowing you’ve helped your urban environment be more sustainable for future generations.

Past generations did not see the social, environmental or local climate benefits of the area now known as Fernhill Park. At the beginning of the 20th century, the surrounding areas were farms with dirt roads traversing the interior. A dump occupied the area.

In 1940, the city started buying land for public parks and, in 1956, changed the name from Ainsworth Park to Fernhill Park with a size of almost 27 acres.

Concordia Tree Team member Barbara Wharton has been a tree team member since she moved to the neighborhood in 2008. She has enjoyed learning about park tree health concerns and building community while advocating for the green canopy of Concordia.

Learn more by visiting The Concordia Tree Team Facebook page.

Karen Wells is a retired early childhood community educator, health and safety trainer.

By Tricia Elder | AARP Experience Corps

Volunteer! Help Children Read. “Hey, that sounds like fun. I bet I could do that,” I thought when I saw the ad in Concordia News.

But I’m no teacher. What could I really do? Would I be in a classroom? Choose my own books? Would the teacher guide me? How much time would it take?

The answers are: I’m in a classroom, I can choose my own books and word games or use those provided, I have guidance and input from the teacher, and I’m in class about eight hours every week but I could be there as few as four.

Volunteers who earn a stipend serve about 10 hours a week.

When I contacted Metropolitan Family Service (MFS), which administers the AARP Experience Corps program, I learned it’s nationwide and has been operating for many years.

Older adult volunteers are carefully screened, interviewed by MFS staff, and given 12 hours of training in literacy strategies and building relationships before being assigned to classrooms that have requested them. More training is conducted throughout the year.

Teachers identify four vulnerable students who would benefit from tutoring and match them to a volunteer with whom the children will work one-on-one or in small groups. Although volunteers work most intensely with their matches, they also provide literacy assistance to other children while in the classroom.

I’ve been at Prescott Elementary for the past four years, the past two years in kindergarten. What a dramatic difference it makes to work with young children! In just a few minutes at a time a few days a week, a child can learn not just letters and sounds, but words and sentences.

Today I worked with two of my matches playing a rhyming game they enjoy. We put letters in front of “at” to make these words: cat, chat, bat, brat, fat, flat, sat, spat, splat, that. I did not read the words to them; they sounded out and read the words to me.

These kids are 5 and 6. I’m matched to them because they needed help in October and, after just a few months of reading and playing with words to augment regular classroom instruction, they’re flying!

Please consider volunteering for our Experience Corps team, and help children read. Hey, it’s fun and you really can do that.

Email volunteer@mfs.email or call 503.290.9427 and I’ll see you next autumn.

Tricia Elder volunteers for AARP Experience Corps and performs data input for the Sierra Club. She also maintains an online real estate database for surveyors and lenders working in the rural Texas county where she and husband Steve lived previously. Tricia is happy every day to wake up in her Concordia neighborhood.

By Steve Elder | CNA Media Team

Portlandd voters will soon have the opportunity to fight climate change while promoting social and economic equity.

The Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) would generate an estimated $30 million annually to do things like weatherize and solarize Portland homes and businesses. It would also provide energy efficiency upgrades for low-income housing, job training, minority contractor support, green infrastructure assistance, and local food production.

The ballot initiative is what some call pure democracy: people can vote directly to make a law that affects them, not going through the legislature or other governing body.

The PCEF ballot initiative would impose a 1 percent business license surcharge on retail corporations, such as Apple, Starbucks and Wells Fargo, that do a $1 billion worth of business nationwide and $500,000 of business in Portland annually.

To get on the November 2018 ballot 45,000 signatures of Portland registered voters are required. A citizen’s commission, appointed by the city council, will distribute the money. The commission will oversee competitive proposals for use of funds.

Each commission member must have strong interest and experience in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, acting on climate change, and advancing racial and economic justice.

Detractors say the measure sounds like a sales tax. Technically it is not, although corporations will pay based on meeting a certain sales volume threshold. Corporations already pay license fees. PCEF is a surcharge. Most of the affected corporations already collect charges in other states that they pass on to Portlanders in the form of standard prices all over the country.

PCEF is a little like Measure 97, the tax initiative which lost statewide after a campaign that broke Oregon’s spending record for ballot initiatives. The measure won handily in two counties, Multnomah and Benton.

According to the Department of Energy, every dollar invested in weatherization generates $1.72 in energy benefits and $2.78 in nonenergy benefits such as fewer medical bills and less labor time lost. Landlords who upgrade properties will be required to limit any rent increases.

The PCEF steering committee has among its members the Sierra Club, 350PDX, the Audubon Society, NAYA Family Center, the NAACP, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, and more than 100 neighborhood associations, including Concordia.

Signatures will be collected from Portlanders who will be old enough to vote in the November 2018 election. Signature collectors should be able to explain the initiative and provide copies for review.

Volunteers are needed to help collect signatures. If you’d like to help, google contact information for any of the sponsors.

Steve, East2@ConcordiaPDX.org, is an inactive lawyer, a developer, activist and old grouch.

CNA VOICES
By Katie Ugolini| CNA Social Committee Chair

It’s spring, and fundraising is in full bloom in Concordia.

As you know, your Concordia Neighborhood Association (CNA) raises funds to sponsor events and activities that fit our mission to build community.

Last month, we sponsored the Spring Egg Hunt and coming up soon are our booth at the July Fernhill Concert Series, the summertime neighborhood yard sale, the Aug. 3 National Night Out celebration, the Sept. 23 Northeast Sunday Parkways and the CNA Holiday Party in December.

Only one event each year makes money. That’s the Neighborhood Clean Up, scheduled for Saturday, May 19, at the PCC Workforce Center.

Our budget also receives a modest annual donation from the city’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement and the rental income from the McMenamins Kennedy School Community Room. (Need a venue for a meeting or party? Visit ConcordiaPDX.org/community-room-rental for details.)

By far our largest expense each year is the concert series. It costs about $16,000 to pay for the bands and equipment. Yes. That’s no small amount. And one of the sources of income for it won’t be available this year.

That’s income from passing the hat during intermission at each concert. In the past, the hat provided $5,000 to $6,000 to help defray concert costs. This year, however, all funds from the “hat” will go to the Portland Parks & Recreation general fund for programs.

Although supporting all of our Portland parks activities is important, this means that one of our most dependable sources of revenue for the Fernhill Concert Series – the audience – will disappear in 2018.

So fundraising is especially important this spring and the three people who traditionally raise money – two CNA Board members and yours truly — need some recruits. Please help us keep this family-friendly Concordia summer tradition alive.

Please consider becoming a sponsor and/or making a donation. And contact me at KTUgolini@gmail.com if you can lend us some time to approach local businesses and organizations to request donations and sponsorships.

By Greg Bourget | Portland Clean Air

Portland currently ranks as the worst city in the U.S. for respiratory distress from air pollution. That’s according to the EPA’s most recent National Air Toxics Assessment, released in 2015 using 2011 data.

With this in mind, our Portland Clean Air (PCA) volunteers conducted data requests about industrial stack polluters and unfiltered diesel trucks from nine government agencies during the past three years. PCA is a registered Oregon political action committee and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

We collaborate with 27 other airfocused Portland environmental groups and neighborhood associations. We address industrial pollution in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

The organization has been working with Concordia Neighborhood Association (CNA) to compile the data into a report localized to the neighborhood.

But there’s more work ahead, and more volunteers are needed to alleviate the problem more quickly. It took neighbors 42 years to identify that Bullseye Glass was annually putting 6,000 pounds of lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium into their unfiltered furnace. Eighty-five percent of these heavy metals went airborne next to a daycare in inner southeast Portland.

Now they have a scrubber removing 97 percent of the emissions because of the political efforts of their neighbors.

PCA needs Concordians to help study every unfiltered industry and truck fleet in the neighborhood. That’s what it takes for immediate and reasonable mitigation to be requested for any nearby Bullseyelike factories and unfiltered truck routes.

Would you like to help? From the comfort of your home, you can compile data and analysis. Previous science or data experience is welcome, but not required.

Volunteers each receive an Excel spreadsheet or other digital data source via email or website and, following explicit instructions, copy or type the data that pertains to the Concordia neighborhood.

Analysis volunteers follow similar instructions aimed at identifying industries with dangerous unfiltered air pollution.

With your neighbors – working with CNA and PCA – you can help make the nearby air safer. For details and to volunteer, contact Greg@PortlandCleanAir.org.